Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

by Zora Neale Hurston

  I met Madame Lamissier Mille from Archahaie, that rich alluvial plain going north from Port-au-Prince which is called the granary of Haiti. There are so many wealthy and productive plantations of bananas, coconuts and garden produce that the whole place is swathed in rich green foliage. From this Lamissier I heard the name Vixama, which is hard to hear even in Haiti. You hear much about the mythical man in the mountain near St. Marc, but few know and breathe the name Vixama. What was more important than the secret name of a legendary figure, was the invitation to visit a real Bocor who has his hounfort at Archahaie whom she said was a “parent” of hers which means in Creole that they were related. This was the opening I had wished for, so I eagerly accepted. We passed Christmas day in Ansa-a-galets, and I had stewed goat with the Chief of Police. The next night our party of five marched single file down the stony path to the sea in the white light of a gross old moon and embarked for Port-au-Prince. When the sun arose the next morning it was pleasant to stretch myself along the gunwale and look far down into the water and see the animal life down there. I saw a huge shark point his nose up and lazily follow it to the surface; I saw a great ray swimming about and numerous parrot fish. It rained on us twice, but that night around nine o’clock, we landed in Port-au-Prince, and the next day Lamissier went off to Archahaie to find out when her cousin, the Bocor, would receive me. I was very eager for him to admit me, because Archahaie is the greatest place known in Haiti for Voodoo.

  CHAPTER 12

  ARCHAHAIE AND WHAT IT MEANS

  Early in January I went to Archahaie to the hounfort of Dieu Donnez St. Leger. He has a large following and owns large plantations himself. He lives in a compound like an African chief with the various family connections in smaller houses within the enclosure. About one hundred people are under him as head of the family or clan. He is very intelligent, reads and writes well and sees to it that all of the children in his compound go to school. The arch above the door to the hounfort and peristyle were both painted in stripes alternating green, white, blue and orange. The walls were green and red.

  He was extremely kind in allowing me to attend all of their ceremonies and in making explanations. He had his Mambo, Madame Isabel Etienne, take great pains with me to conduct me through the rites step by step and to teach me the songs of the services. I was in a fortunate position, for his place has such a large following that there were ceremonies nearly every day. Sometimes two or three in the same day. Red cocks were tied before the door of the mysteries awaiting the hour of sacrifice. I was learning many things and being astonished at the elaborate rituals that Voodoo has developed in Haiti. After the ceremonies the drums played for Congo dances and men and women helped to teach me the steps. First, of course, was the Jean Valou, the Congo and then the Mascaron. Other steps were introduced as the occasion demanded until I could follow whatever they did in the dance and singing.

  One night something very interesting and very terrifying came to pass. A houngan had died and Dieu Donnez was to officiate at the Wete’ loa non tete yum mort (Taking the spirit from the head of the dead). This ceremony is also called the Manger des morts (The food or feast of the dead) or the Courir Zinc (To run the Zinc fish hook of the dead). This ceremony is not always in honor of a houngan. It is also celebrated for a dead hounci or canzo.

  That day a pair of white pigeons were obtained, some olive oil, flour, more than thirty pieces of fat pine wood, a pair of chickens, some coarse corn meal, and a saddle blanket, and a large white plate. Two chairs were placed under the peristyle and the dead body of the houngan was placed on them and covered with the saddle blanket.

  The chickens and the pigeons were killed and cooked without seasoning. They were very careful that no salt whatever should touch anything. This reminded me of my experiences in Jamaica and how it was felt that salt was offensive to the dead. The coarse corn meal was put in a pan and parched or roasted as one would roast peanuts or coffee. Every minute or two the assistant would pick up the pan and shake it to make it roast evenly. When it was finished, it was placed in the white plate. Then slivers of pine wood were lighted and placed for illumination instead of candles.

  Dieu Donnez himself made a sparkling fire under the peristyle and when it burned hot and fierce, he took the white plate with the corn meal in one hand and the white pot with the chickens in the other and approached the fire chanting:

  “Har’au Va Erique Dan, Sobo Dis Vou qui nan

  Ce’bon Die qui maitre, Afrique Guinin, tous les morts

  Hai’ ’an Va erique dan.”

  The body of the dead man sat up with its staring eyes, bowed its head and fell back again and then a stone fell at the feet of Dieu Donnez, and it was so unexpected that I could not discover how it was done. There it was, and its presence excited the hounci, the canzo and the visitors tremendously. But its presence meant that the loa or mystere which had lived in the dead man and controlled him was separated from him. He could go peacefully to rest and the loa would be employed by someone else. If the spirit were not taken away from the head of the dead, then it would have to go and dwell at the bottom of the water until this ceremony is performed. Some say that the spirit of the houngan must pass one year at the bottom of the water anyway. When the ceremony is finished, after the man has been buried, the two chairs are dressed with the saddle cover, but are otherwise unoccupied except in a spiritual way, if you want to look at it like that.

  Dieu Donnez then addressed the dead spirit in the African jargon called “langage.” That is a private matter with each houngan and it varies with each time he employs it because different loa dictate different things to him. So that is always new. But the opening prayer which is taken from the Catholic church remains fixed. No one knows what was said to the dead man to get him to relinquish the mystere but he had sat up, bowed his head with its unchanging eyes and laid back down and the stone had fallen at the feet of Dieu Donnez St. Leger. Now he produced a fish hook made of zinc and passed it through the flames three times. This is the “Zinc” of the dead that is his no longer. The power it held will pass on to his successor, which in this case was his son.

  Then all of the assistants began to march around the two dressed-up chairs, each with a flaming pine torch in his or her hands, and it was a most impressive sight. Mambo Etienne rattled her ascon and began the singing. The whole crowd sang lustily and well. The two Petro drums began their rhythmic march from Guinea across the seas and the three Rada drums answered them in exultation.

  The chickens cooked in olive oil without salt were placed on a white plate and Dieu Donnez offered them to the dead with tremendous earnestness and dignity. After that the plates were paraded around the two chairs and buried with the food on them.

  It was then the thing of terror happened. There were some odd noises from a human throat somewhere in the crowd behind me. Instantly the triumphant feeling left the place and was succeeded by one of fear. A man was possessed, it seemed, and began crashing things and people as he cavorted toward the center of things. There was a whisper that an evil spirit had materialized, and from appearances, this might well have been true, for the face of the man had lost itself in a horrible mask. It was unbelievable in its frightfulness. But that was not all. A feeling had entered the place. It was a feeling of unspeakable evil. A menace that could not be recognized by ordinary human fears, and the remarkable thing was that everybody seemed to feel it simultaneously and recoiled from the bearer of it like a wheat field before a wind.

  Instantly Dieu Donnez faced this one with his ascon and other signs of office to drive it away from there, but it did not submit at once. He uttered many prayers and the terror of the crowd grew as the struggle dragged out. The fear was so humid you could smell it and feel it on your tongue. But the amazing thing was that the people did not take refuge in flight. They pressed nearer Dieu Donnez and at last he prevailed. The man fell. His body relaxed and his features untangled themselves and became a face again. They wiped his face and head with a red handkerchief and
put him on a natte where he went to sleep soundly and woke up after a long while with a weary look in his eyes.

  They poured libations for the dead and the ceremony ended.

  It was explained to me later that the Courir Zinc is not a difficult ceremony to perform, but that it is dangerous for any except a full fledged and experienced houngan to try it for fear that evil spirits may appear and do great harm before the good loa can be summoned to drive them off. The happening confirmed the belief of the people that Dieu Donnez St. Leger is a great and a powerful houngan. It is said that he is also a powerful Bocor when he serves in that capacity.

  Life had plenty of flip for me at Archahaie. I could put my army cot under the peristyle during the day and lie there in the cool and rest and watch the people come to Dieu Donnez for various things. Several sick persons were there at all times. The sick men sat around under the trees or laid on their nattes in long shirts without any trousers. Sometimes I visited among them and practised up on Creole. But usually I was wherever Madame Etienne was. Not because she was next to Dieu Donnez himself in importance but because she is a kindly person, very entertaining and an amazing dancer for all of her bulk. She has charge of running the establishment and no one dares disobey her. All of the food for the hundred or more people in the compound is prepared at a common point. The work is divided up by Madame Etienne and supervised by her. She works as hard as anybody.

  Leaving the professional aspect of the place aside it is one of those patriarchal communities so numerous in Haiti. It is the African compound where the male head of the family rules over all of the ramifications of the family and looks after them. It is a clan. Dieu Donnez has a little house all to himself where he can retire and rest after tiresome and strenuous work. He would send for me to come there so that he could instruct me. There is nothing primitive about the man away from his profession. He is gentle but intelligent and business-like. All of his lectures had to be written. He took ashes and drew the signatures of the loa on the ground and I had to copy them until he was satisfied. Sometimes abruptly he would leave the hounfort and go on a tour of inspection of his extensive banana and coconut plantations. I have a suspicion that he is a person who likes solitude and that it was a way he had of escaping from the nig-nagging of crowds. He inherited his office of priest from his father, who many say was a greater houngan than Dieu Donnez is. Anyway, Dieu Donnez is a hereditary houngan and that is considered the real and the true way in Haiti. One day I said that I must go to Port-au-Prince to see about my mail and he let me go, saying that nothing important was in prospect for the time being anyway. So I rode one of those bone-racking, liver-shaking camions back to the capitol and Lucille, who was always so anxious about my safety whenever I was out of her sight.

  But I was not in Port-au-Prince many days before the Master sent for me by a young man who is part of the clan and is also of the palace guard. Dieu Donnez said for me to be there within three days to bring a bottle of toilet water, a fountain pen for him and a bottle of ink. I went with portable stove, army cot and the things that Dieu Donnez wanted. And I am very glad that I went. He was going to set up a hounfort and make a houngan and these things would call for many ceremonies. I was very glad about it all. My Creole was getting pretty good by now.

  The next day after my arrival at Archahaie, we set out for the place where the new hounfort was to be established. Dieu Donnez said that I could wait until next morning and come by camion but I said I’d rather walk with the rest. We set out gaily near sundown with great quantities of everything including the spirit of laughter. We sang as the dusk closed in on us plodding down the dusty road. We joked and frolicked. Madame De Grasse Celestin was riding her donkey amid two great sacs paille full of good things for the trip. After a while I rode some too and Mambo Etienne’s son walked alongside and joked and sang and kept the little animal moving. So we went on like this for hours into the night. It was a dark night but nobody cared. We were like a happy army stealing a march.

  We came to a point of huge mango trees where a man was standing beside the road. It was the place to leave the highway and go down a twining path across running water that chuckled among the greenery. Now and then houses hid behind the trees. We walked two miles perhaps and the straggling army halted again. We had reached our destination, the compound of Annee’ La Cour, who is a cousin of Dieu Donnez and for whom the Master was going to set up the hounfort. We had halted because there were formalities that required it.

  A canzo came out with a torch light and brought corn meal and water and a houngan made the signature of a loa upon the ground, and threw the water three times upon the ground for the dead. Mambo Etienne did the same. They went through a ritual proper to the occasion, but brief. The other canzo came after and threw water ceremonially. Then the hounci. After that we all went inside.

  We found great piles of palm fronds piled under the peristyle and a quantity of gay colored paper. The women were waiting to be told what to do and Mambo Etienne put us all to work stripping the palm fronds into strips so fine that when it was done, it looked like a great, cream and green ostrich plume. Mambo Etienne and Annee’ La Cour cut the fringe away from the central stalks and draped the “plumes” over the back of a chair. These were going to be cut into smaller pieces and used to decorate the peristyle and the various repositories of the gods. More work was going on out under the great elm tree that was to be dedicated to Loco and late in the night I went out there and spread up my bed to sleep. The next morning Dieu Donnez himself arrived with the rest of the clan in tow, and there was a great ceremony at the entrance for him. We were given some delicious hot tea called channelle before breakfast and it was a most refreshing and surprising thing. Channelle tea is a lovely habit for anybody to have. I was put to work cutting up the colored paper to be strung across the peristyle to decorate it and spent the entire morning at it. By that time a crowd was beginning to collect. When the peristyle was all decorated, I went out to the cooking place where the women were cooking great quantities of food. I noticed that Madame Etienne found the rocks herself to support the large cooking pots, and that she marked each rock with a cross mark in charcoal. She answered me that this was done to keep them from breaking when they were heated.

  Soon Dieu Donnez sent for me to come to him under the peristyle. He was breaking up the Ascon. That must be done to remake it for a new Canzo or a houngan. He wanted me to see how it was done. I was allowed to help him restring the beads and snake-bones that surround the gourd that becomes the most sacred object in Haiti outside of the stones which contain loa. Each important god has a bead of a different color dedicated to him or her and these are represented in the arrangement of the beads on the Ascon and in the grand necklace that is worn by all the grades from a hounci to a houngan. The Collier hounci is neither as long nor as elaborate as the Collier Canzo or houngan. The necklace of the houngan is a splendid affair that is looped about his shoulders in a specific manner. It must be very long for that.

  That afternoon the ceremonies began. The drums and the hounfort were dedicated. But of course, the very first ceremony was to Papa Legba. I ought to explain that while the people always say and sing “legba,” the scholars tell me that the African word is Lecbah or Letbah. Perhaps the people are in error. All I know is they sing “Papa Legba, ouvrier barriere por moi passer.” Anyway out in the courtyard of the hounfort of Annee’ La Cour, the great preparation was going on. The drapeaux done in blue and white with the symbols in blue and red on it was flying from a pole high on the hounfort with its roasted ear of corn for the god who loves it. I saw the red rooster tied out in front of the house of ceremony. I saw the great tree well decorated with lacified palm fronds. Pieces of this stripped palm fronds were everywhere. In the hounfort were niches for the different gods. The pole with an iron serpent beside it for Damballa, “Li qui retti en ciel” (He who lives in the sky) and whose symbol on earth is the serpent. In the second room were the things dedicated to the congos with their resplendent
colors. The congo and the Rada should not occupy the same room but they should be under the same roof.

  Soon now, we were summoned to the hounfort to begin, and Mambo Etienne tied my red and yellow handkerchief on my head in the proper loose knot at the back of my head. We removed our shoes and went into the hounfort, where Dieu Donnez, Annee’ La Cour were already. The altar was set. Dieu Donnez was seated in a very low chair facing the altar. When we were all in that the place could hold, he covered his head with his ceremonial handkerchief and began the monotonous Litany:

  Dieu Donnez: Ela Grand-Pere Eternel,

  Us: Ela Grand-Pere, Eternal, sin dior e’

  Ela Grand-Pere Eternel, Sin dior docor Ague’

  Ela Grand-Pere Eternal Sime nan-min bon O

  sain’en.

  Dieu Donnez: Ela Saint Michel.

  Us: Ela Saint Michel, sin dior e’…”

  and so on as before.

  This continued until Saint Gabriel Raphael, Nicolas, Joseph, John the Baptist, Saint Peter, Paul, Andre’, Jacques, Jean, Phillipe’, Come et Damien, Luc, Marc, Louis, Augustine, Vincent, Thomas, Laurent, Sainte Marie, Mere De Dieu, Saint Vierge Marie (A distinction between Virgin Mary and the mother of God), Sainte Catherine, Saintes Lucie, Cecile, Agnes and Agatha. These were all on the Christian side and the same response was sung for each name. Now the houngan began to chant the names of the Voodoo gods, and we responded as before, including the pagan deities in our chants.